First Blood (33 page)

“We found that in the grave,” he explained. His voice was hoarse. “It was put there with the kid.”

Eva was wearing bright blue latex gloves. She took the bag carefully.

“It’s just a piece of painted wood,” the officer added. “It looks like a religious painting.”

“True enough,” Eva said. “It comes from an altarpiece.”

She examined the black and gilded rectangle through the plastic. There were flames and horns. The damned were screaming just before being devoured by a bright red devil with long teeth.

Another fragment from a religious panel.

It clearly had come from the same piece that had been found in Constantin’s freezer.

Why was that?

She turned the bag over. As she had expected, this piece appeared to go with the other one. She could read the word “Jean,” followed by letters that were hard to make out--maybe a “d” and a “u.”

“It represents the Revelation of Saint James,” she said aloud. The Last Judgment.

This piece of wood fascinated her. It was a lead that had to be important. And at the same time, it was very frustrating. She felt like she was holding a key, but she did not know what lock it fit. She looked at the police officer.

“Have you looked for prints?”

“What do you think—that we’re country bumpkins?” the man asked. “There was nothing on that thing.”

“Okay. There’s no sense getting so worked up,” she said.

The officer grumbled and closed up like a clam.

The doctor was bearded and well built. He announced his name, David Calmejane, when he came into the room to do the post-mortem.

Eva prepared for the worst.

She looked at the dissection table when Calmejane lifted the plastic cover revealing Madeleine Reich’s baby. It was a tiny caved-in shape, a grimacing skull beneath a veil of dried skin.

She breathed through her mouth, slowly, and moved closer.

She tried to detach from the scene. The scalpel running across the gray skin. The baby’s body. An innocent creature. It was more than she could take.

“I can confirm that this was not a stillbirth,” the doctor announced. “The umbilical cord was cut ante-mortem. This baby appears to have lived for several days. The cause of death is far from being natural.”

Doctor Calmejane had long spidery fingers. Yet he touched the human remains with a visible gentleness.

“Its throat, chest, and lower-left temporal region have been perforated several times by a sharp object. There is no sense taking imprints after fifteen years of decomposition, but I would bet on a knife or an ice pick.

Eva did not say anything. It only confirmed what she thought.

She stayed in her bubble, detached. She analyzed the information.

Vauvert stood next to her, leaning forward. He did not betray any signs of emotion, but she knew him and recognized that he was deeply affected by this procedure.

“Are all of the injuries on the left side?”

“Yes, indeed,” the doctor said. “The person who killed this child held the weapon in his or her right hand. They struck from up high, like this.”

He lifted his arm and mimicked the attack. Five successive blows. The baby probably died with the first. But the blade came down four more times.

Vauvert turned to his colleague. She nodded. The other baby had been killed by a left-handed person. This one—this girl—had been killed by a right-handed person.

“It’s her,” Eva said. “It has to be her.”

“Is there anything more we can learn from the body?” Vauvert asked.

“In the state it is in, I don’t think so. I’ll do a tox screen.”

“Is there any indication that this could have been some kind of ritual?”

“A ritual? What are you talking about?” Calmejane asked.

He looked at the plastic evidence bag containing the fragment of the painting. The shiny black and gold depiction of the Last Judgment. “Is this some devil-worship thing? Is that why there was something in the grave?”

“What if that were the case?”

“Okay, let me look.”

The doctor first examined the brain and then carefully removed the internal organs from the tiny body.

Eva looked over at the police officer. She noted that he had stepped back, and his eyes were shut. It looked like he was going to faint.

“No, there’s nothing we can use,” Calmejane said. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. The body has decomposed too much. We will have to analyze the clothing fragments. I have already sent them to the lab.

He lowered his green mask and looked powerless.

“Seriously, what is the world coming to? Don’t you agree, Bertand?”

The mustached police officer nodded before he left the room, as white as a sheet. He was staggering, and Eva feared he would collapse in the hallway.

“Don’t judge him too harshly,” Calmejane said. “Bertrand is a little sensitive. We had a bad case here not so long ago, a real serial killer using diabolical rituals and the whole nine yards. Bertrand’s brother-in-law was decapitated at the crazy murderer’s place.”

“Oh,” Vauvert said.

“Can you even imagine that?” the doctor asked.

Vauvert smiled politely. He certainly could imagine it; he had seen it with his own eyes. The events were a little more complicated than that. But the doctor did not need to know.

“Yep, what is this world coming to? Thank you for your help, Doctor Calmejane.”

The crack widened every time the pickaxe came down.

Madeleine was showing signs of fatigue. When the pickaxe got stuck in the cement, she was panting like a draft horse. She twisted it left and right, but it refused to budge.

“Piece of crap.”

The man sniggered. He was sitting in the snow, propped against a stone block that was shielding him from the icy wind. He had lit a fire, but the flames provided no real warmth. He continually worked his hands through his beard to remove the ice crystals that kept forming.

“I told you. We’ll never, ever get through.”

“SHUT UP!” she shouted.

Her big fur coat was now spotted not only with blood, but also with mud and slivers of concrete. She looked like a beggar who had happened upon a trophy in a rich woman’s trash or maybe some terrible goddess disguised in the body of a whore. Her blond hair had once been so silky. Now it was sticky with sweat, which streamed down her slashed cheeks.

Loisel looked down, trying to avoid her eyes, and shivered.

“It’s your turn,” she announced. “Since you find it so funny, you’ll keep going.”

She managed to extricate the pickaxe and heaved it in his direction. The handle struck Loisel on the head.

“Bitch.”

“Stand up and dig,” she ordered. “It’ll warm you up.”

He had no choice but to obey.

The pickaxe was heavy. He lifted it and brought it down on the cement that Madeleine had already dug into. Another piece broke off.

“Apply yourself,” Madeleine said, crouching near the fire.

Loisel clenched his jaw.

“If I get out of here alive, I swear I’ll kill you,” he said, the hate gleaming in his eyes.

He started pounding on the cement again.

Their cigarettes crackled. They said nothing.

Their thick leather jackets were pulled tight around them to protect them against the wind. Neither of the two police inspectors managed to say anything. They needed time to assimilate the autopsy and chase away the images of baby flesh.

At least they had official confirmation that the child had been murdered.
A human sacrifice. They were all sacrificed.

They contemplated the hilly landscape that surrounded the morgue. They could see the snow-covered rooftops of Rodez on the hill in front of them. The motionless sky was growing darker.

“Okay,” Vauvert said, exhaling.

“Okay,” Eva said, imitating him.

They went silent again. They continued smoking. Here and there, the city’s lights began to sparkle as night fell.

Vauvert spoke first. He threw the glowing cigarette butt into the snow and asked, “What’s all this about the painting of the Last Judgment?”

“We think the painting comes from an altarpiece. It represents the Apocalypse. Many churches had them during the Middle Ages.”

“And that woman put it with her kid after sacrificing her. Why?”

“I don’t know why, but it is not the first fragment of the painting we have found. There was another one next to Constantin’s child.”

Eva flicked her cigarette butt away.

“I’ll explain it in the car.”

They climbed into the Audi. She turned it on to start the heat. Then she told him about finding the piece of wood in Constantin’s freezer and what Perrine Alazard had dug up about it.

“Do you think these pieces are from a church that still exists?” Vauvert asked.

“I don’t have any idea. I thought it was a kind of souvenir from some ritual, but that doesn’t get us very far.

She took her phone out and pulled up a number of pictures.

“I took a picture of the first fragment. This is what it looks like.”

He leaned over to get a closer look at the screen, where there was half of the devil’s profile.

“If I understand correctly, we have two pieces of the same puzzle.”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t you think we’ll find others with the other sacrificed babies?”

“It’s very possible,” Eva said. “But I’m not sure about anything in this case anymore.”

“We’ll have to check,” Vauvert replied. “In the meantime, we already have two pieces. Do they fit together?”

“I think so. Wait.”

She set the sealed evidence bag on her knee and carefully snapped shots of the piece of wood with her phone. She repeated the operation on the other side, until she had the whole thing. She made sure the photos were clear enough, and then she opened a photo editor so she could fit the two together.

Vauvert watched her, fascinated.

With her finger, she moved the first picture, the one found at Constantin’s, bringing it alongside the second. The two fit together perfectly.

“Seeing something like that, I don’t want to be around for the end of the world,” Vauvert said.

Eva smiled. They now had the devil’s whole head, which was terrifying in its Medieval naiveté. The crimson-skinned creature was devouring a damned soul. It brandished a pitchfork, with people impaled on its tines.

She saved the combined picture and opened the back-side pictures. After the same manipulation, she was able to see the full panel. The back was gilded, with the exception of an inscription that was now legible. It read, “SAINT JEAN DU.”

Eva chewed her lip, tortured with frustration. She still did not understand where this was leading. But she was sure it was key information.

“Saint Jean, Saint John,” Vauvert said, thinking out loud. “The Last Judgment. The Revelation of Saint John. Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Yes. It’s in the New Testament. It describes the end of humanity. But this inscription must mean something else.”

“Like what?”

She slid her phone back into her pocket and fiddled with her glasses.

“Maybe it refers to the patron saint of a church. That would explain why it is inscribed on the altarpiece.”

“That’s pretty smart. So we could try to find that church, right?”

Eva took a minute to think.

“Yes, except we can’t, Alex. Not like that. There are thousands of churches dedicated to Saint John. It’s impossible to guess what the rest of the name is from the pieces of the puzzle we have.”

“We need the other pieces.”

“Exactly.”

Vauvert leaned back in his seat.

“So we don’t have a choice.” He sighed. “We need to exhume the other kids as quickly as possible.”

“Guillaume Alban’s kid is buried in Nancy,” Eva said. “But I doubt the guy was able to put anything in the grave, since he was arrested immediately after he threw the girl off the balcony. He was already behind bars when she was buried.”

“Pierre Loisel had access to his son’s coffin.”

“Is he buried in Toulouse?”

Vauvert nodded. Then he paused for a moment.

“Okay. I hate doing this, but the judge owes me a real favor.”

“Which means?”

“Which means the Loisel tomb will be opened tonight,” Vauvert said.

He looked at the morgue.

“How many members do you think this little sect had? How many other kids did these sickos sacrifice?”

A shiver ran up Eva’s spine, despite the heat in the car.

“I don’t know. I’m sure, though, that someone is hunting them down, one by one. He’s making them pay for something.”

Vauvert nodded.

“But why? What did they set off?”

Eva felt another uncomfortable shiver run up her spine.

The blade is shining, like a flash of daylight held prisoner in Ismael’s black hand.

They are gathered in a circle around the altar in the back of the abandoned chapel. In the pale spring shadows, their eyes hold fantasies and promises. Crazy dreams at their fingertips.

“Should we give our group a name?” Pierre asks.

“From the dawn of time, shamans have used dancing and chanting to call on the gods,” Ismael says. “Sorcerers bend the universe to their wishes. We will be like them soon. Black sorcerers. Equal to the gods!”

He opens his shirt and brings the knife to his bare chest.

“This is our blood, the blood of the black sorcerers.”

Without hesitating, he draws the knife in a long, straight line across his left pectoral, where he has a star tattoo.

His blood flows over his skin. Ismael smiles, ecstatic.

“Gods of the shadows who praise sacrifice, we are doing this for you.”

Madeleine crouches before him, collecting the precious liquid in an iron chalice.

“Accept this sacrifice and this communion,” she recites. “The power of the flaming five-pointed star.”

They repeat this together, louder and louder. The power of words.

The knife goes from hand to hand, accompanied by chanting. One after another, each member of the group cuts the skin, freeing a red trickle of life into the iron chalice.

The tension rises. There is a tremor in the air. It ripples, as though moved by invisible waves.